The first 30 days of the Obama administration have come and gone. In that time, B.O. (not body odor silly, our President) has pinned 3 executive orders, 1 memorandum, 1 presidential notice, and, oh yeah, the single largest spending bill in the history of the world. A $757 billion dollar “stimulus” plan chocked full of every Democratic pet project and wet dream one could imagine. However, Democratic wet dreams are about all this monstrosity will stimulate. The bill is loaded with so much liberal pork that the 1100 + pages could be used as a weapon against Islamic Terrorists.
In his bid to sell his plan to the people, Obama evidently thought it was necessary to remind us of how horribly bad our situation really is. So much so that he referred to our economic “crisis” on average of at least once every minute during his grandiose signing ceremony and speech. (This was a true dog-and-pony show within itself, but we can discuss this some other time.)
While Obama got exactly what he wanted, the victory was empty and short lived at best. Not a single House Republican voted for the bill and only 3 Senate Republicans crossed over the aisle to get it to the Presidents desk. Considering that the 3 Senators that crossed over - Sen. Snow of Maine, Sen. Collins also from Maine, and Sen. Spector from Pennsylvania- are what most conservatives would consider as liberal Republicans at best, the passage was by no means bipartisan. In fact, the Republican unity was seen by many in the liberal press as a slap in the face to Obama and resulted in much criticism. However, considering that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid passed this legislation without any real Republican support, it is fair to say that Obama now owns the recession. He purchased it for us at a bargain price of $757 Billion dollars.
That being said, the President is likely feeling a does of buyers remorse. To say that the stimulus package is unpopular would be an understatement, even within the confines of his political base - which, by the way, is eroding fast.
A new Zogby poll shows the lapse in public opinion for Obama’s new “New Deal”. No surprise here, 93% of Republicans think the stimulus bill is too fat with pork, will not help the economy, and may actually hurt our recovery. Also, 45% of Democrats and 66% of Independents feel the stimulus falls short of being helpful and may actually stifle economic growth. Even among Obama’s golden egg, the 18 to 29 year old voting block, 53% disapprove of the package. I will be the first to admit that I am no expert on political strategy, but it does not seem to be looking very good for team Obama.
Who is ultimately going to get us out of this mess? Unless you are one of the few that believe that the government can actually spend its way out of debt to stimulate the markets, there is only one way to ignite the economy. Stimulate small business and entrepreneurial endeavors. That being said, 56% of small businesses feel that the stimulus package will make things worse for them and 60% of business leaders feel the package has too much pork. It is clear that our capitalist system does not care for Obama’s socially liberal spending plan. Go figure…